1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for recovering heat from molten metallurgical slag using a heat recovery equipment comprising as main component elements a primary heat-exchanger of rotary cylindrical type having a crushing or atomizing device for crushing or atomizing the molten slag with air jet, and a secondary heat-exchanger for recovering high temperature blast from hot slag granules discharged from the primary heat-exchanger.
2. Description of Prior Art
Generally, in the smelting process of ores and in the refining process of crude metals, a large amount of high temperature molten slag is produced, and the heat brought by the slag out of the system is very large. However, the molten slag is a high-temperature product, it changes considerably in its nature during its cooling process from the liquid state to the solid state so that it is very difficult to handle, and it has very low industrial value. For the above reasons and others, the molten slag discharged from a metallurgical furnace is once cooled in a water-granulation equipment or in a dry pit, and only part of it is utilized as ballast and building material but the greatest part is wasted.
Therefore, to date, the slag has never been utilized from the aspect of its heat recovery, and an enormous amount of heat energy has been left unutilized.
Meanwhile, in recent years, "save resources" and "save energy" have been strongly and loudly advocated world wide, and the recovery of exhausted heat from the molten slag has been one of the most important and urgent problems to be solved.
Particularly, in the field of ferro-nickel production, where a rotary kiln (calcining the ores) and an electric furnace (for reduction melting of the ores) are mostly used, a large amount of molten slag is produced from the electric furnace, reaching as large as 30-40 ton, per ton of nickel content in the ferro-nickel produced. Further, as the molten slag is at a temperature as high as 1500.degree. to 1600.degree. C., it occupies almost about 50% of the heat consumption in the electric furnace, which corresponds to about 15 .times. 10.sup.6 kcal per ton of Ni, equivalent to 1500 l of heavy oil.
In recent years, the world nickel resources are being rapidly exhausted, and along this, the grade of the nickel ores has been lowering steadily. As the nickel ore grade becomes lower, the amount of slag produced per ton of nickel becomes much increased, and this tendency is increasing. Therefore, the importance of the recovery of heat from the molten slag has been increasing.
To date, various techniques for recovering slag heat have been proposed and published in many patent specifications and scientific literature.
Among them, for example, one method comprises casting the molten slag into a caterpillar type continuous slag casting machine or a slag truck in a closed chamber and bringing the air in and out of the closed chamber to obtain a hot blast. Another method comprises granulating the molten slag in a closed chamber by means of water vapor, air jet and a rotary drum, and introducing air into the chamber to obtain a hot air blast, and still another method comprises casting the molten slag into slag lumps, charging the slag lumps in a shaft tower, and introducing air into the tower to obtain a hot air blast.
All of the above conventional methods have considerable limitations in their commercial practice as they have defects in that the equipment requires a large scale structure and is not satisfactory in heat resistance, the heat recovery rate is low (about 35 to 40%), and the temperature of the recovered hot air is low.